Ozy Comes Back

Inexplicably, when I’m gone, news keeps happening. What the fuck? I thought the entire universe would simply break down crying, unable to go on while I’m not talking to them. But tragically that doesn’t seem to be the case, so here’s a roundup of what’s been going on while I was off having Brain Issues.

Orlando Cruz has become the first gay man to come out as gay while still professionally boxing. Good for him. I’m glad that he can be honest with himself.

A trans man was not told about his breast cancer diagnosis because a physician was bewildered by his trans body, which means that he couldn’t get early treatment for his breast cancer. Frankly, I think if a doctor is bewildered by any sort of body they’re falling down on the “doctor” part of their job.

California has banned treatments to try to alter someone’s sexual orientation. Given the way they police masculinity in particular, the unscientific basis of the treatment, the negative mental health consequences of shame around sexuality, and the fact that sexual orientation is not a mental illness, I am glad.

The group Blue Veins is attempting to empower women by educating and engaging men on issues from domestic violence to sending their daughters to school instead of to the marriage altar.

In Florida, if you have friends who are gang members or if police think you look like a gang member (whatever that means), you can be put on a gang list, which affects everything from how likely you are to be stopped and searched to sentencing decisions. There is no way to appeal being put on a gang list. If you guessed that this is disproportionately applied to poor black and Hispanic men, congratulations, here is your No Prize.

John McNeil, a black man, has been sentenced to life in prison for the self-defense killing of Brian Epp, a white man who had already pulled a knife on McNeil’s 19-year-old son. But the justice system isn’t racist!

Boy Scouts news: Intel has refused to fund the Boy Scouts of America until gay people can be scouts too. An almost-Eagle Scout has been denied the award because he’s gay.

An interesting article about anti-circumcision activists being douchebags by manipulating Amazon.com ratings to give a false consensus against a book that happened to positively mention male circumcision. Please note that I am against infant circumcision myself and am pointing out this article in less a spirit of “anti-circumcision activists are terrible you guys!” and more “please… please stop helping.”

TW for rape and torture and okay, you guys, the BBC put a fucking trigger warning on this article, it is super-distressing.Horrific sexual torture of Syrian dissidents. I’ve been trying to think of something to say, but to be honest I can’t improve on that article. I’m not sure what I can do to help, but at least I can stand in witness of their suffering. Here’s Cute Roulette if you need it.

The word “faggot” is used 15 million times a year on Twitter. “Faggot” is not just used as an expression of homophobia– which is bad enough– but also to gender-police men who fail to show appropriate levels of masculinity. Speaking of fags, a man labelled “fag” in his yearbook 42 years ago finally gets a fucking apology.

In fulfillment of a pact, a man wears a dress at his soldier friend’s funeral. I… I have something in my eye.

Crommunist talks about the myth of black male rage and how it affects how he, as a black man, participates in discussion. In general, marginalized people are not allowed the right to their own anger; the racialized and gendered aspects of how people’s anger is invalidated are very important for discussion though.

An interesting discussion of male violence, healthy masculinity, and the myth that men can’t control themselves. I would have been happier if the author had mentioned that men can be victims of rape and abuse too, and that women can be perpetrators of all kinds of violence, but I suppose you can’t have everything.

I think we all know by now that I have a soft spot for stories of gender-non-conforming kids. Boys in fabulous pink-and-blue sparkly shoes! Sparkles, much like Star Wars, are for everyone.

Men who buy sex are often more interested in an emotional connection than taboo sex. This defies stereotypes of men as caring more about Hot Hot Sex than relationships. I can’t figure that’s particularly nice for sex workers, though: it replaces the physical labor of taboo sex with possibly even more strenuous and exhausting emotional labor.

James Landrith, who is fabulous and wrote a guest post for NSWATM oh these many months ago, addresses (TW for discussion of rape-survivor-blamey bullshit) toxic victim-blaming myths about rape survivors.

Ally Fogg, who is also fabulous, talks about double standards for fathers and mothers in the prison system.

A helpful pamphlet for trans men about sexual health. (There’s also one available for trans women.) Trans people often have genitals that differ from the cis norm, so it’s really helpful for us to have sex education that talks about our bodies and risk factors.

TW for explicit descriptions of rape: gay male rape! It’s a thing! This is pretty 101 for most NSWATM readers– rape of men exists, it is traumatizing, don’t be a victim-blamey or rape-erasey douchebag– but I’m always glad to see people raising awareness.

A fascinating article about the provisions of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, including the shocking statistic that if PREA recommendations are properly implemented the occurrence of prison rape could be reduced by half. This is a solvable freaking problem, people.

About ozyfrantz

Ozy Frantz is a student at a well-respected Hippie College in the United States. Zie bases most of zir life decisions on Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and identifies more closely with Pinkie Pie than is probably necessary. Ozy can be contacted at [email protected] or on Twitter as @ozyfrantz. Writing is presently Ozy's primary means of support, so to tip the blogger, click here.

Interesting set of links. On the issue of sexual orientation alteration: If it actually worked, I might be against banning it because I believe people should be able to control and alter their minds and bodies. I might alter myself (I’m currently straight) if there was no societal stigma. Given the non-working-ness of it and the way it’s pretty much always presented as forcing everybody to be straight, I think I agree though. At first I thought that was the Greek God Athena. That’s a really sad story, and one which ruined who would otherwise be my patron. It’s almost… Read more »

An interesting discussion of male violence, healthy masculinity, and the myth that men can’t control themselves. I would have been happier if the author had mentioned that men can be victims of rape and abuse too, and that women can be perpetrators of all kinds of violence, but I suppose you can’t have everything. Ah, that would be Soraya Chemaly, the author of an article here on GMP where she stated that “only men can stop rape” and that individual stories about the “spectre of female rapists” distorts the real picture of rape culture. To her male victims and female… Read more »